


and oh, doesn't it seem to shine? (the wasps' nest)

by handschuhmaus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Nobledark, Plagueis's mode of survival is not my original idea, Premonitions, Sith not dying, Snoke is...also someone you almost certainly were not expecting, Time Travel, again with the people making some decent choices in a grim galaxy, completely ignores sequel trilogy canon, early Empire era, elements borrowed from EWE fics of ages ago, give Sith daughters 2k14, in case you were wondering not compliant with the Tarkin novel either, in no way canon compliant, not really a sequel era fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 21:45:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: Darth Plagueis returns, and finds himself a family.





	and oh, doesn't it seem to shine? (the wasps' nest)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [a fan of the xyz](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344692) by [handschuhmaus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus). 



> I mean I need ANOTHER AU like I need the proverbial hole in my head but am I going to? Definitely. 
> 
> chapter and work titles from the band This is Deer Country
> 
>  ~~concept also very loosely and wildly inspired by blueenvelope935's "The Fifth Wife"~~
> 
> Snoke's identity here isn't compliant with what is intended to (um... _eventually_ , to put it diplomatically) transpire in the black flowers blossom 'verse, although ...some other elements are similar(!)
> 
> oh, and this isn't guaranteed non-compliant with _Tarkin_ , it's just that not having read the novel, there's a decent likelihood there could be contradictions.

For years, there is the quiet and defiant work of midichloreans, integration rather than the expected decomposition.

When Hego Damask again shows his face on the streets--well, underlevels, of Coruscant, the Empire has come into uneasy existence, plagued by the former compatriots, former enemies on its border, and haunted by the Jedi it has almost eradicated (Sidious, of course) and would very much like to exile but has no place to exile them to. Indeed, it is three years old on this very day, but the old Muun has no wish, exactly, to join in the revelry. Oh, alcohol holds its eternal appeal, but he rubs his jaw and considers that, uneasily, he has a delicate peace with his liver, reknit together with what might as well be magic. 

It would be poetic to say that he is inexorably drawn up into the marginally respectable levels of Coruscant, and to a three level complex with an open stairway walkup and a quiet mall perched on top of it, begging a bit of skyspace between two more luxurious towers. But no, there is only a faint thread, almost of scent, that attracts him here. He notes idly that the bulletin board by the stairs, water spotted and flecked with dirt, is titled in the Serennoan writing system; perhaps this is a district for expatriates of the land of their ex-Jedi Count. 

He slowly staggers up the first flight of steps, comes to a dark green door, and tries it, having little to no expectation that anything should come of it. To his mild surprise, the door opens readily once the handle is turned, and there is a small human child sitting indoors on a blanket, playing with soft stuffed cubes.

* * *

Rey is all _very_ overwhelmed. It was one thing to go up into Tatooine airspace and even space-space because the guards of some rich offworlder's spaceyacht didn't believe in her special intuition (it had been going all out, bells peeling: if you don't he'll _die_ ) and demanded she go up in it alone to prove she wasn't executing sabotage. What that didn't explain was trying to make a quick hyperspace jump out of the system (and then in again, quick as you like) and...apparently hitting a wormhole, and now being nowhere she recognized. Maybe, possibly, it could be Coruscant, but there's no explanation for how an undocumented wormhole could dump her here.

Running on human autopilot, she manages to negotiate landing space in a quiet residential district, and disembarks to have a look around, and try to figure out what the kriff has happened. The first being she runs into is a Bith; they're frequent musical guests at the more popular drinking spots on Tatooine, and so she is inclined to think this one harmless, but they seem to be staring at her, staring (says her intuition), as if she has accomplished something very strange, as if she could be a ghost.

She has no idea what that could mean, and excuses herself, walking rapidly down the sidewalk and hoping the suddenly unsettling stranger doesn't follow. The tea shop looks promisingly safe, with its bubbly window ads for muja-fruit flavor bubble-caviar and red bean jellies, and the bell on the door rings with a friendly tone as she opens it.

* * *

People come to Coruscant, usually, because it is the political center of the galaxy. 

Phasma Shriya is no exception, but she in her chromium is also the last thing people expect to have come from Naboo. The planet produces Gunguns, yes, but its people it sends out are bound to be petite brunette queens in concealing makeup or statesmen with flowing locks. There isn't really a place in the galactic conception of "Naboo" for gangly women who salvage a motley assortment of stormtrooper armor, for practical purposes, and go about in the electroplated results, with tousled short blond hair. Worse, no one famous off or on planet is from her island continent and little understand that when she goes only by Phasma it is much the same as the Chancellor's own singular name; Shriya a name she does not share through relation, but also a provisional one she has little use for in the wider world. She would like to forget her background, here. Association with Naboo isn't all bad, but her own particulars are unsavory.

Benadette "Kylo" Kablik is _not_ here for politics, however, thank you very much. She is feral in disposition and thrumming with forbidden potentials. And her object is the Jedi Temple, the remains of which unfortunately divide into two unpromising categories: absorbed into the Imperial Palace complex, or lying in hazardous ruins. She has her own pet theories about certain...heroes, though Phasma doesn't seem to have the patience to hear them. She is eternally either overdressed for the climate or underdressed for propriety (the latter today, in a black cropped tank top and dark brown bermuda-length shorts that show off her pale legs), programmed by her homeworld of Mygeeto to endure the cold and to dress for a blizzard at any time.

They are meeting today in person, penpals for several years, however, to make an appointment with Vanherd Snoke, a compelling new underdog in the Senate, who has taken an interest in Phasma, purely because she had ended up standing for some minutes in a corridor outside the Senate restaurant when she had been unable to get a tour.

* * *

The Bith who had stared at Rey is now staring at a quite old fashioned but still digital pocket watch, as if daring the contents of his own pocket to tell him something he either suspects and does not want to have confirmed, or something unbelievable anyway. And then he marches over to one of the turbo-elevators to the upper levels, inserts a credit coin (the machine complains, in a chirpy voice "please ensure you are using official republic credits, not provisional ones issued in the Mid-Rim"), and strides purposefully (also in the sort of random walk Hego Damask had done), over to a public gardens, in a freely accessible park. He finds there a pair of women, one perhaps in her forties, one near the end of her twenties (although he is gleaning this information from the Force and not from his abilities as a judge of human age). 

"I think," he announces absently, "that your life may be in danger."

"Have we been introduced? Lady Ephemaria," the older introduces herself, spinning her deployed parasol thoughtfully. 

"Atalia Currin," says her companion.

"No, it doesn't matter who you are," he says insistently, "except that I think you can help--something has gone very wrong."

"What, in my--in _our_ capacity as musicians?" Ephemaria says--there is no more fitting adjective than gaily, but then it turns to a more knowing, teasing cadence "Or is it because I am Grand Moff Tarkin's posession?" 

"Neither, I should think," he says darkly, and then examines the sky, to the mystification of the couple.

* * *

Vanherd Snoke is deformed and decrepit but surprisingly vital in air. He greets Phasma effusively, even if he does stick in at least two "Shriya"s in as many sentences when she would rather he didn't, and he looks at Benadette and makes the perspicacious but bizarre comment, speaking very plainly and not like one trying to convince them of anything, saying, "You don't want to go to the Jedi Temple."

Kylo eyes Phasma, but decides not to press the subject, and Phasma looks, at this point, to agree.

"Oh, but you could be quite something," he says to Kylo, and then offers "A drink?" 

"I'd like some water if you have it," Phasma says simply, sitting down unbidden. 

"You have opuntia wine," Kylo observes, if too directly to be polite. "Can I try it?"

Snoke stares at her and finally says, "...if you like," and fetches from the bar behind him Phasma's tumbler of water and a slender flute of the shockingly pink desert ferment.

Kablik rolls it around in her mouth, despite a total lack of wine-tasting experience, and swallows hard but thoughtfully. 

"Now, what is it you want?" Snoke asks Phasma, in treacly tones.

* * *

There is another Bith inside the tea shop, in a wheelchair, sipping a drink that is milky orange and speckled with black tapioca, and looking at Rey with her head tilted sideways. Somehow she thinks this probably isn't a musician either. 

"You should be careful. There's a lot of strange things happening in the area," says the Bith, in lightly accented Basic. "Would you like some tea? Somehow I think you won't have brought any credits."

* * *

Whatever prayers Bail Organa may send to the gods, they will not be enough to see his presentation, given audience before the Emperor, heard fairly. Darth Sidious is getting a migraine, a strange one. 

Normally premonitions don't _trouble_ Sidious. That is not to say they are absent, only that they do not induce these symptoms. But what kind of premonition is the sensation that Vader, off in the Outer Rim, is standing in some sort of physics problem mirror set up and being reflected into not one but two nexuses on-planet, plus the pressing feeling that he is going to turn around and be greeted by Hego Damask? Furthermore, there is most certainly actual Jedi activity somehow sprinkled about the streets, suddenly popping up, and none of this is helped by the present question of the agenda of one Vanherd Snoke, of unknown species, some backwater planet, and an agenda opaque to Sidious.

* * *

He overhears a voice in the unlocked apartment. "...I told you, I have to go finish feeding Tanger." An adult voice, which Force senses tell Darth Plagueis belongs to a human. Why he should be here, he cannot quite work out, and then he notices that the child might be Forceful, steps forward, and the Force might as well be taunting him with some sort of bizarre hologram or shadow picture: from another perspective, though it makes no sense for it to be a physical one, the child is decidedly _promising_. 

"Do you know, I got a package and physical mail," says the probably-parent from the other room, and she walks into the hall, into view. She is far shorter than Hego Damask, probably short even for a human woman, and she pops open a folded flimsi which is sealed with extremely old fashioned wax, only to gasp sharply at the content as she reads. 

He supposes this is a comm call. The person on the other end says something he can't make out, and then she responds, reluctantly, "I can go up and meet you at the tea shop in an hour or so. Do you good to get out, and maybe you can make sense of it in pers--sson." And she has spotted Hego Damask in her, or anyway _the_ , apartment.

"Who are you?" she asks of him.


End file.
